Friday, February 22, 2013

We'll Just Have To Go Back Someday

I have survived us going to Brooklyn, New York in a 72 foot semi. It was one of the most stressful things to have happened. Brooklyn is not made for semis. New York City is not made for semis.

On the other hand, Ace and I went to Hershey, PA after leaving New York. That was cool.

Let me back up some to explain why Hershey, PA was cool, because it wasn't because of getting to see Hershey, PA (too dark, although they do have a street called Chocolate Avenue, which is awesome).

It all started when Ace and I left to go to Louisiana with a load of salad. One long night later, we get stuck sitting for 10+ hours waiting for Ace's break to be over so we can get to our next load. That load was supposed to be started loading onto a trailer at 5 pm and be ready to go by 10 pm. It was finally ready at 5:26 am. That's annoying, but it happens. It would be nicer if we got paid when things like that happen, but we deal as best we can.

So, we deliver the load on time. The place we are delivering to has all the trailers a bit close together, but we get our trailer dropped and we hook up to an empty trailer. All we know about where we are supposed to go from there is Amarillo is the right direction. We end up getting a 34 hour reset (which means Ace has a fresh clock for driving for the week) that we don't need, but it's no big deal (except that is money we could be earning). We head up to Liberal, KS to pick up a load of meat.

The load we are picking up was supposed to be ready by no later than 1:30 pm on Valentine's Day (Ace and I can't get there until about 4 pm, but it is supposed to be ready when we get there). It is finally ready at about 5 am on the 15th. It is already late and the company has to reschedule when it's delivered. Sucky, but not our fault in the slightest.

While we are hauling that load, there is an accident about 3 miles from our planned stop for the night that eats up time while we wait to be able to move. Then, we get a call on the original delivery date that they want their delivery that day, can we do it? The answer is no. Then it looked like we might get taken off it and stuck waiting on a different delivery, but that doesn't work out. So, they have to wait on their delivery because it just isn't going to happen on the original date.

Then comes the harrowing experience of trying to help Ace not get lost in New York. We made it to our delivery 15 minutes early. Then we get to sit and wait, while blocking traffic in one lane, for the receiver to be ready for our delivery. Everything goes fine during our wait and while backing into the dock was crazy, it wasn't a big deal. Getting back out of Brooklyn, on the other hand... We got lost. Thankfully, a cop car pulled up and lead us back to where we needed to be to get out. And while we got lost again trying to get across New Jersey, we managed to avoid going back to New York.

While we were sitting at the dock, waiting for our load to be unloaded, we got our next delivery assignment. Hershey, PA to Mississippi. We arrived in Hershey early, hoping that maybe they might be ready for us. They were, which was great because we were 6 hours early. Everything with that load (which we finished last night) went great. They had an easy place for us to drop our trailer. The trailer we were hooking up to was where they said it would be. And we got part of the way down the road towards the delivery before we had to stop for a 10 hour break.

We are currently getting another 34 hour reset, but this one is actually needed. We pick up a load tomorrow night. Hopefully things go smoothly.

Sometimes, trucking involves a lot of sitting around, waiting. But when it's going well, it involves a lot of driving.

I'm just glad I'm with Ace again. And that we are planning where all we want to go when we are seeing the US in a car/RV.

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